Posted on 10/13/2007 11:24:52 AM PDT by Reaganwuzthebest
ALBANY, N.Y. - Few New York policy issues have ignited such swift and fiery opposition and even confounded likely supporters than Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to make it easier for illegal immigrants to get state driver's licenses.
"Spitzer maintains his policy ... will improve (homeland) security," the Watertown Daily Times wrote in one of several editorials on the topic. "That may be true, but rational discussion of the policy is being drowned out by the rhetoric on both sides."
It doesn't help that Albany remains neck-deep in political mire that has veteran lawmakers and staffers shaking their heads. Even New York's Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton have so far avoided the fray, despite the national security concerns.
Spitzer's order, effective in December, will allow immigrants to use a valid foreign passport, confirmed by state officials, to get a license, instead of Social Security numbers that were tied to valid U.S. residency. In an interview with The Associated Press, the freshman governor answered some of the harshest criticisms.
Spitzer: "The underlying objective here is to make everyone safer. This policy will finally generate a driver's license that will be used by people we can actually identify. They will have to provide a foreign passport that we can check and validate and instead of having a million people living in the shadows without having any idea who they are.
We will now know who is driving, which will make the roads safer, save people money on their insurance rates, and begin to address an issue the federal government has totally abdicated, which is how do we deal with our immigrant population ... Every security expert we have spoken to believes this policy makes us safer."
Q: Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, told The Buffalo News that Spitzer's policy is a "perfect formula for al-Qaida. The won't be able to resist it ... So New York becomes a sanctuary for al-Qaida and all sorts of other people on the lam."
Spitzer: "That's simply not the real world. Anybody who comes will have to prove identity with a valid foreign passport."
Q: Peter Gadiel of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America told the New York Post: "Every illegal is a person whose true identity and possible history of violence and terrorism is unknown. Thus, any illegal may be a terrorist."
Spitzer: "The 9/11 Commission outright rejected the views he has articulated ... the people he's talking about are here.
We will have a valid, foreign passport for every individual getting a license. We will know who they are, know of their criminal record if they have one, and deny them a license if they are not entitled to get one. We are going to be way ahead of where we are right now. We will have a much safer driver's license system as a result."
(From the 9/11 Commission report: "The federal government should set standards for the issuance of birth certificates and sources of identification, such as drivers licenses ... At many entry points to vulnerable facilities, including gates for boarding aircraft, sources of identification are the last opportunity to ensure that people are who they say they are and to check whether they are terrorists.")
Q: Republican Sen. Thomas Libous, to the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, countered: "What part of 'illegal' don't people understand?"
Spitzer: "This is law and order. It is an effort to ensure that when an officer stops a car, the driver's license is a genuine document that gives you the actual identity of the person. Alternatively you can have an environment in which people forge their social security numbers, or drive without a license, or use somebody else's license. Those are not only inferior, but dangerous alternatives.
The issue of our giving a privilege to those who are not here legally, necessarily, I don't think is the right way to view it. These are individuals who are here in our communities, going to our public schools, going to our hospitals, working in our economy. And we are all better off making them part of the aboveground economy rather than keeping them beneath the surface where we don't even know they exist."
Q: Why? Most states don't allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses.
Spitzer: "That is true, but there are also other states that do not require proof of residency in order to get a driver's license. Seven or eight states have no legal status requirement and so what we're doing is saying, `We need to know who you are, we're just not asking how you got here ... Millions of people come in every year on a foreign passport.
The fact that when you crossed the border you didn't have a visa, you didn't come in properly, that is not the purpose of the driver's license. That's the federal government's responsibility, and they have failed for decades to enforce and do their job."
Spitzer’s logic: because illegal aliens are in our communities and sucking the taxpayer dry through their free use of our public schools and hospitals we should reward them with drivers licenses and encourage even more to flood the state so they can do the same.
There’s nothing more to this than Spitzer wanting to turn the state senate over to the Dems. It’s all about fraud.
Yup that's exactly it, I was thinking the same thing. He sees the GOP Senate as a thorn in his side and through the illegal vote figures he might be able to swing it to the democrats. He is a total sleazebag and even democrats are now starting to speak out against it.
New yorkers have the Government they wanted — and deserve.
Terrible idea!
I’m leaving the state (finally), so I’m actually of a mind that the state gets what it deserves in that regard. If they want to vote for scum like Spitzer, then they should reap what they sow.
Soon enough, I’ll be down in a red state that makes the tax burden here look laughable. Most of us normal folks left here will make similar moves. If the lib pigs want to live in excrement, I say let em. :)
Holy Sh*t! The majority of illegals don't have passports! They never had passports in the first place! They bought phony documents and/or Social Security numbers off the black market. If they even bothered to do that!
This simply serves to perpetuate illegal immigration.
Soooooooo
Spitzer’s gonna be selling illegal passports on the side?
Spitzer is simply “licensing” every illegal in NY state to vote, (Democrat of course,) setting up the state for another biggie attack by AlQaeda, and negating any legal NY residents’ drivers’ license as a valid means of id beyond NY.
Not all of us want this government in NY, nor do all of us deserve it.
No, drop ‘em off at Spitzer’s front door.
Or at the Albany gov building.
Either one will do.
Spitzer’s logic, applied to gun control:
Because illegal weapons are in our communities and are sometimes used to injure the good, the bad, or the ugly, we should reward the illegal weaponeers with concealed carry licenses and encourage even more to flood the state so they can do the same.
Seconded. As I've posted before... "Don't blame me-- I voted for Faso."
That's exactly what should be done.
Noted and agreed.
However, it's getting to the point that all we can do is leave.
From NP in California. (You think you got it bad.)
New yorkers have the Government they wanted — and deserve.
AND THE RINOS OF NYS HAVE HELPED POUND THE NAILS INTO THE COFFIN.
“Spitzer’s logic: because illegal aliens are in our communities and sucking the taxpayer dry through their free use of our public schools and hospitals we should reward them with drivers licenses and encourage even more to flood the state so they can do the same.”
Pretzel Logic
“Not all of us want this government in NY, nor do all of us deserve it.”
I know YOU don’t deserve it.
How ya doin, Darks?
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